


completely numb

by watergator (orphan_account)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Hurt, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-28
Updated: 2017-06-28
Packaged: 2018-11-20 13:01:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11336070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/watergator
Summary: Lance gets hurt and Keith is the only one with him, trying to ignore the screaming in his head that he isn't going to make it, and for Lance's sake - he tries to stay positive during this shitty situation.





	completely numb

It happens in one swift movement; one quick action and time seems to slow down. Keith never really liked that cliché, not until Pidge said once in one of her rambles that the reason it feels like time has physically slowed down was because your brain wants to absorb as much of what it can see as possible – but right now Keith is still doubting that theory because why the hell would he want to remember this?

But he hasn’t even got time to blink, not even a second to shield him from the moments in front of him, because Lance is already hitting the floor.

There’s chaos all around him, the ship is screaming with all types of sirens and alarms, he’s sure Shiro is in his ear from his headset, barking orders; but it all seems to phase out as all he can hear is the heavy thud that almost ricochets in his head and down his spine.

His feet are moving before he can think, he doesn’t need to tell his brain that, it happens on instinct, and soon he’s by Lance’s side and that’s when instinct suddenly fails him, and panic takes over.  
There’s blood, too much of it, he thinks, for one person and his hands hover over the gaping wound on the boy’s stomach, trembling as they hold inches away from the gory sight in front of him.

His breath catches in his throat when he makes eye contact with Lance, his eyes are small, squinting and Keith has to try and remember how to breath for a second because _he doesn’t know what he’s doing._

“Lance” is the only word he manages to cough up, but it doesn’t sound as confident as he had hoped,

“Lance, it’s alright, just sit still” he says, fear lacing his voice as his eyes flicker over the wound again.

Lance squeezes his eyes shut and tears dribble sadly down his face.  
Wasn’t he supposed to be screaming? Shouldn’t he be yelling and clutching himself in pain? Why wasn’t he talking? Why was he so scarily still?

There was a big part in Keith’s mind that told him that this was a good thing; that this meant it wasn’t _that bad_ , that this was perfectly fine and Lance just needed perhaps a few stitches and a couple of hours in the sleep pods and he’d be healed in no time.  
But there was also a tiny part that was screaming, right at the back of his brain, screaming that this was most definitely not a good thing; that this was a terrible sign – that Lance was probably dying, and he couldn’t do anything about it. 

He hears a faint cough and he’s grounded back to reality again, and his logic starts to kick in, _maybe the adrenaline_ , he thinks, and he knows he needs to apply pressure to the injury.  
He quickly slips out of his red jacket – they hadn’t even had time to change before the Galra had boarded the ship, and Keith has to push out the thought that perhaps if Lance was wearing his paladin armour maybe he’d be okay, but even in his state of panic, he knows now is not a good time to think about “what if’s” and to concentrate on the here and now instead.

He’s ripping off the sleeve without even thinking, and using it as a temporary bandage, but when he sees the pool of blood that resurfaces, he decides that using the whole jacket is probably going to be a better idea.

He’s doing his best, using all energy he has to concentrate to try at fix this situation but when he hears the weak voice beside him, his head is snapping upwards, eyes wide as his bangs fly out of his face,

“It’s okay”

His voice is so small in comparison to how it usually is; loud and obnoxious, and it does something funny to Keith’s heart that hurts him.

“It’s okay, Keith” he repeats, slower this time, as if making easier for the boy to understand and Keith can’t even comprehend words right now.

It doesn’t make sense; Lance is bleeding out, practically dying, and he’s the one saying that it’s going to be okay?  
Keith couldn’t help but think it all seemed a bit backwards to him.

The dark haired boy shook his head, applying more pressure to the pooling wound, ignoring the trickle of blood that was now running down his hands and in between his fingers – it felt horribly warm and sticky, something that Keith tried to swallow the sensation of down so he wouldn’t vomit on the spot.

“Just, just – hold on tight” Keith stuttered, trying to look away from the boy, trying to ignore how dull his eyes looked now.

“Just hold on” he said again, his voice was raw, and he didn’t know why because he hadn’t allowed himself to cry yet – not now.

“Keith” Lance speaks, and his voice is the total opposite of raw; it’s soft and almost transparent.

Keith stops to look at the boy, who now has lifted his head of the floor a few inches, and once Keith see’s this he quickly uses his free hand to support him,

“Keith,” he says again, more breath this time, “it doesn’t even hurt”

The voice in the back of Keith’s brain is screaming at full volume now, that this isn’t okay, that this is far from okay, but again, Keith switches it off, so much so that he can concentrate on the slow sounds of Lance’s breathing.

“I guess that means you shouldn’t be acting like a total baby then” Keith jokes softly, and doesn’t even notice the tears that are welling up in his eyes until he watches silent ones slip from the boy beneath him.

“I was always a drama queen” Lance huffs a laugh, and tries to hold back the pain that comes with it.

Keith slips his hand into his, fingers intertwining and Keith gives it a squeeze, and slowly, Lance squeezes back, almost as if proving he was still alive.

It feels like hours as they sit in the dark cold corner of the hallway of silent eye contact, before Keith hears the crackle of his headset in his ear and he remembers he has a whole team one line away, why the hell isn’t he calling for help?

“Shiro?” He says, maybe too loud as he tries to ignore Lance flinch slightly.  
There’s another crackle, a faint voice, almost robotic and then all too quickly, it goes dead. He’s either lost the signal, or somethings happened.

Keith knows there’s no real way he’d lost signal from inside the castle but he decides to put it down to that instead of the other option.

“Fuck” he mumbles under his breath, turning his attention back to Lance again, furrowing his brows together in frustration.

“Language” Lance coughs faintly, his lips curling into his famous smirk.

Any other time Keith would tell him to piss off or give him a slight shove, the banter between them had grown as of late – turned out that being stuck with someone in Space really did bring you closer – _ironic, really._  
But now there was nothing Keith wanted to do more than scream. How was this fair? Here Lance was, bleeding out on the godamn floor, making smartass comments like the idiot he was; and Keith had _no fucking clue_ what he was doing.

He blinked, and it seemed as if a whole waterfall had erupted from his ducts, because tears seemed to be free falling now.  
He choked out a sob, eyes blurring for a second, before he realised he needed to see in order to look at the wound, not that he wanted to, if he was going to be of some use.

Then, Lance spoke softly, “Hey”

Keith ignored him at first, he couldn’t even look at Lance right now – he just needed to focus on doing _something._

“Hey Keith, look at me” Lance spoke again, and Keith hesitated, he didn’t really want to, but his heart was screaming at him, _‘look at him’._

He turned his head, to see that Lance was too crying again, tears rolling down his cheeks, and he tried to ignore the small trickle of blood forming from the corner of his mouth.

 _‘He’s dying’_ the small voice in his head screamed so loud it hurt.

“Lance” Keith practically sobbed, it came out nothing but a whisper, a sad, pathetic cry.

He was scared.

“Keith, baby, look at me” Lance said, his voice somehow quieter than Keith’s, and the purple eyed boy almost missed the small pet name, but he met Lance’s eyes with his own, and they were sparkling – still alive.

“It’s okay” Lance said for what felt like the millionth time, and Keith shook his head, small tears flying from his face,

“No, no, no it’s not” he hiccupped, eyes squeezing shut like a child, more tears escaping.

“Take my hand” Lance said a little more firmly this time, weakly raising an arm as a gesture.

Keith quickly took his hand in his, fingers intertwining with each other’s, squeezing slightly.  
He gave a weak smile, but they both knew it was fake and forced and so full of hurt.

“Keith Kogane” Lance breathed out a laugh, closing his eyes. 

There was a small minute of silence and Keith was concerned to why Lance had said his name and nothing else, trying not to think about how perhaps the blood loss was getting to his head; but those thoughts when Lance finally spoke again.

“I’d recognise that mullet anywhere” he opened his eyes again and smiled, it was a real one this time, and Keith tried to smile back.

“God, I can’t believe how much we hated each other” Lance exclaimed, laughing a little, causing Keith to give a watery laugh too,

“Lance and Keith – neck and neck” he smiled with his eyes.

There was another silence, a more comfortable one this time, when Lance spoke up again,

“You know, you weren’t all bad, Keith” the brown haired boy said, “Those times at the Garrison – I acted like a total twat” and Keith laughed, a little more genuine this time,

“You still are” Keith smiled, his voice raw still, and Lance shook his head with a small laugh,

“I know”

Keith’s eyes flickered over to the wound again, his jacket had absorbed the blood, but his heart dropped when he saw a new pool beginning to form, Lance’s torn t-shirt absorbing fresh blood; quickly.

“I never really liked this shirt much,” Lance said, like it was nothing, “wouldn’t be my first choice of clothing to be stuck in space with” he frowned.

“And I ruined your jacket” he tutted like it was a major inconvenience, as if he had spilled food goo down it; not like his blood was basically pumping out of his body at an alarming rate. 

“It doesn’t matter” Keith said too quickly, and Lance looked back up at him.

“It doesn’t matter” Keith said again, voice quieter this time.

“I didn’t like that jacket much too” Keith tried to smile, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes, and it hurt,

“Oh, I don’t know Keith, that cropped look kinda suited you” Lance joked, his voice was slightly smaller and weaker now.

Keith rolled his eyes playfully, his thumb brushing over Lance’s knuckles, his smooth, dark skin made Keith’s heart flutter in his heart.

“Although you could probably pull anything off” Lance smirked, his voice seemed so distant now.

Keith tried to laugh, but his brain seemed to go against him, because his face was smiling but what came out was a sad, choked sob.  
He took a breath, and tried to compose himself, when Lance said,

“I’m going to die” 

It took Keith back slightly, because one minute they were trying to make light of a shitty situation, and now Lance was laying down the facts; _cold and hard._

He tried to speak, he really did, he tried to tell him we was going to be okay, refuse him the pleasure of slipping away, tell him he was going to make it – but that voice in his head, that voice of denial, seemed to have disappeared, because all he could think was, _‘I know you are”._

He couldn’t get the words out of his mouth, so instead, he opted to crying again, silent tears, because was couldn’t scream or sob or do anything; just sit on this floor and cry.

He tried to ignore how Lance’s skin was a sickly pale now, how his eyes were no longer sparkling, and his grip on his hand seemed to be slipping.

How long did he have? Keith wondered. Minutes? Seconds? He didn’t know.  
But he tried to absorb as much as Lance as possible before he was gone. He remembered about what Pidge had said about thing going in slow motion for the brain to take in everything at once; and Keith was mad that his brain wasn’t making this moment slowdown in the slightest.  
Instead, time seemed to be going faster.

Lance’s eyes were shut now, and if it wasn’t for the tiny rise and fall of his chest, Keith would think he was already dead.

He watched him, his brain working a million miles an hour, his body stuck still.

 _Tell him_ , his head screamed, _tell him before it’s too late._

His throat ran dry and he cried again, tears slipping down his face, heart beating so incredibly fast whilst Lance’s slowed down.

“Lance” he whispered, almost as if he was trying to wake him, “Lance” he tried again, and the boy cracked his eyes open.

They weren’t even blue anymore. They were grey; almost colourless.

“Lance,” Keith’s voice cracked, “Lance, I love you”

He lay still for a moment, before a small smile formed on his lips, eyes watering again,

“I know”

And that’s when Keith moved, head dipping to reach his, lips crashing against Lance’s. He ignored how cold they were, and his heart almost burst when he felt him kiss back; it was so strong and loving and he was crying, again.

And then he stopped. Lance stopped kissing back, and Keith froze, lips still attached to his, when he realised that there was no breath against his.

He hesitated to pull away, when he realised that Lance’s hand had fallen to the floor, his eyes didn’t open, and he wasn’t smiling when Keith pulled away.

_He was gone._

Keith was sure he was supposed to scream, cry – do anything. But he just sat there, looking at the lifeless Lance on the floor, blood still soaking his jacket, and he just felt _nothing._

Maybe he was broken, because he was sure this wasn’t how he was supposed to react. He was supposed to get up and scream all the way to _hell_ and rampage through the castle, cry until he was run dry. But he physically couldn’t feel.

And maybe that was how it really was supposed to be – how he was supposed to feel.

_Completely numb._


End file.
